


salute, arcadia

by cherrygarden



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: A Single Tense Conversation On A Hotel Balcony, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, F/F, Future Fic, Idolhood, Vaping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrygarden/pseuds/cherrygarden
Summary: Jung Jinsol: stuck between restlessness and complacency.Jeon Heejin: in love, but probably just with her job.
Relationships: Jeon Heejin/Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33
Collections: BBBFest Debut Round: The Bittersweet Option





	salute, arcadia

Heejin's been trying to pick a fight all day. Maybe longer, but they've barely had the time to fuck without a recording or a practice or a flight or a dozen other people being around getting in the way. In the morning, on the way to the venue, she'd said, "You took so long to get up today we could've been late." Hyunjin had turned around from the middle seat to raise her eyebrows at them; Heejin was rarely ever straightforwardly critical. She liked keeping the peace more than bringing up issues she could easily let slide. Jinsol wondered how much Hyunjin knew anyway, how much she and Heejin talked about their— whatever they were doing.

Later, Heejin tries to fix a point in Jinsol's choreo in between sound checks. She was getting way handsier about it than entirely necessary. Hands on Jinsol’s hips, draping her whole front along Jinsol’s back to nudge her into place. It wasn’t the kind of touching they usually did in public. And it was bullshit, of course. Jinsol could do the choreo in her sleep at this point. They all could, but Jinsol was the same kind of detail-oriented perfectionist Heejin was. She hadn't done anything wrong, and they both knew it.

Heejin plays the hot and cold routine through the rest of rehearsal and then mostly cold through the concert. At the end of it, they’re all coming down from the stage high, and it makes a quiet ride back to the hotel.

"Let's order room service," Heejin says, swinging their hands between them in the hallway as they walk back to their hotel room.. "The flight isn't until the afternoon, so we can sleep in a little tomorrow morning."

Jinsol has no idea whether that's supposed to be suggestive or passive-aggressive at this point. "Sure," she leers. "How many times do you think I can make you come while we're 'sleeping in'?"

Heejin purses her lips but doesn't look any more annoyed than she'd been all day anyway. "I'm going to take a shower."

Jinsol holds back from offering to join her and goes to call for room service. Heejin's still showering, probably luxuriating in the solitude. It's hard enough to get a second alone in the middle of a tour, when even days they didn't have to perform are taken up with interviews and filming. Jinsol shuffles around the room aimlessly for a moment, digs around her bag for her vape pen, and then shuffles out to the balcony. She takes a pull, blows out and lets her hair hang over the railing, watches the movement of the city at night. Twelve floors up somehow feels pretty far away from all the real people down there living in the real world. Jinsol only ever gets to look at other people from a distance.

Heejin comes out of the shower an extravagant forty minutes later. Jinsol watches her get dressed through the glass of the balcony door.

When the doorbell rings, Jinsol stashes her vape pen in between the cushions of her seat and turns her head to blow out the smoke she's holding in her mouth. Heejin lets the attendant wheel the small feast of room service food Jinsol had ordered out to the balcony. They're not even going to eat all that, but if there's any time to indulge, it's while they're on tour. Their diets are lifted, albeit temporarily, and they don't have to be comeback-skinny for TV. They burn more calories with their grueling practice-perform-travel-repeat schedule than they could possibly eat in a single sitting anyway. "Are you gonna quit that?" Heejin asks once the attendant leaves. "Or are you gonna wait until you get caught?"

"I wouldn't have to quit even if I got caught," Jinsol says. She retrieves the pen and takes a drag, blowing out in Heejin's direction just to prove some sort of point. "And I don't want to quit, anyway, since I'm getting away with it."

" _You're so bad_ ," Heejin sings snidely.

Jinsol puts the vape pen down and starts picking at a plate of fries. They could dance around this a little longer, but Jinsol has always been a proponent of ripping the bandaid off. "What do you really want to fight about?"

Heejin pouts. "I don't want to fight. I want us to be in this together."

"In this what? Relationship? Are we calling it that now?" 

"Not just that,” Heejin says. “I mean, we're a team, right? You and me, and everyone else. We all want the same thing. We’re all working toward the same goal."

Jinsol rolls her eyes. “Stop acting like this is an interview.” 

“I’m not. I just mean, like, aren’t we doing everything we’ve ever wanted right now? Like what we talked about when we debuted— winning a Daesang and doing a world tour, all of that stuff. Don’t you still want that?”

Jinsol shrugs, which is clearly the wrong answer when Heejin’s brow furrows. "You're mad at me because we're, like, successful?" Jinsol says.

Heejin sighs. "I'm not mad at you."

"Fine, whatever, but you've been snapping at me every time we get more than two minutes of silence, so I wouldn't say you're happy, either."

Heejin doesn’t say anything. She watches Jinsol eat for a minute before Jinsol starts to squirm. It’s hard to tell who started this: Heejin with her weird and pushy behavior earlier, or Jinsol bitchily goading her into a fight. It’s hard to tell who still has the upper hand.

"Is the argument over already? We barely got started," Jinsol says. If she said it laughingly, played it off, it might hurt Heejin more, but Jinsol can’t bring herself to be intentionally mean.

Heejin says, "It's not an argument."

"Yes, it is. We obviously can't be happy forever." 

"Why not?” Heejin takes her feet out of her slippers and lodges them in Jinsol’s lap, balancing a plate of chicken precariously across her thighs. “I want to be happy forever. I don't have anything to be unhappy about, except that you're not happy. Why are you pulling away from me?"

Idly, Jinsol takes one foot in her hand and presses her thumb to the arch. Heejin doesn’t rush her. 

She didn’t feel like she was pulling away; that would imply there was anything to pull away from. Neither of them knew what they were doing, and Jinsol was always on the outside of things. Outside the clique, outside the group, outside of normal life. If anything, Jinsol felt like no matter how close their bodies got, there was a distance that got harder to close every day. 

It takes a minute before she says, "I don't think we still want the same thing."

"You want to leave?" Heejin tenses, only slightly, when she says it. There’s always the possibility, when you claw your way to the precarious top, that any sudden movements could bring the whole thing crashing down.

"No,” Jinsol says right away, and then, “I don't know. I want to do something else. I feel like I'm stuck."

"Stuck with me?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you're saying you want to quit?"

"I'm not going to quit."

"So what do you want to do?"

All the hard parts of being an idol were easy now: singing and dancing was easy, variety shows were easy, existing in front of a hundred thousand eyes was easy— those were all things that could be trained. If you push past the point of burning out, it gets easier to do the next time and harder to think about not doing. And then there were the awards, the concerts, all the things Heejin wanted, being told you’ve succeeded at something you burnt so many hours on. The restlessness had crept up on Jinsol, and now the relative comfort itched at her.

"I want to make music,” she says. “I don't just want to sing and dance, I want to craft something. I can't do the same thing for too long. I want to take whatever’s inside me and turn it into something. I'm good at what I'm doing now but I want to be better. I want to be proud of myself."

Heejin’s eyes get impossibly wider and shinier. "I'm proud of you. I'm proud of us. I like what we're doing."

The food is getting cold. Jinsol says, “I don’t think any of us are ever gonna love it as much as you do.”

Heejin opens her mouth like she’s going to keep going but decides against it. Maybe they’ll just drop this, maybe they’ll just keep not-talking about it. Maybe if Jinsol just tries harder it’ll get easier to stay tethered. Maybe, by proximity, some part of Heejin that’s good at just belonging will rub off on Jinsol. Whatever.

Jinsol lifts Heejin’s feet off her lap and stands. “Let’s just go to bed.”

She kisses Heejin’s forehead and goes back inside.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [hand over fist](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26298013) by [younglegends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/younglegends/pseuds/younglegends)




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